Kansas town heals rural decline with steady diet of tourism.

Nineteen years ago the town of Sedan, Kan., began laying yellow bricks that would one day turn to golden eggs.

Like most communities in the rural Great Plains, Sedan was dying of commodity strangles: the agonizing death produced by the atrophy of the cattle and oil industry.

The downtown district was three-quarters empty. Between 1986 and 1987 the town lost 13 businesses.

Then Nita Jones, a local clothing retailer, laid an egg. She decided to build a "yellow brick road," a cerebral surrogate from the Wizard of Oz movie, right in downtown Sedan. Her idea was to bring tourists and their purses into town to replace the money which was evaporating in tandem with the town's residents.

She encouraged the town to begin by selling bricks for $10 each. People would buy a brick and their name would be etched into it. It then would be laid into the yellow brick road in the street, more or less memorializing them along with Dorothy, Toto and the Cowardly Lion.

The project was an instant success. Four hundred bricks sold in the first 2 weeks; soon 1,000 sold; then 5,000. At last tally 11,048 bricks had been named, yellowed and laid into Sedan's own downtown Oz-walk. That's $110,480 raised for community development work, if you're counting. In fact, it is more than that, since time and inflation have puffed the price of the yellow-brick nameplates up to $25 in recent years.

The brick buyers hail from across the nation and a total of 48 countries, Jones said. But the yellow-brick road was a means, not an end.

Goal: revival

The goal was to bring more people to town-to revive Sedan. The yellow-brick road provided money and a curiosity. The next bit of magic was to get people there and give them something to do, and that didn't happen all at once.

Jones and her husband had a real estate office and a retail store in the town. She began to schedule bus tours through Sedan, using newly built, clean public restrooms as the number one attraction. On the surface it may sound silly, she said, but when you've been cramped into the tight quarters of a bus you want to stretch your legs and use a real restroom instead of a tiny rolling closet.

"That's our number one attraction," Jones said. "And when people get off the bus we give them donut holes and tell them about our town.

"We give people personal attention. Everybody loves personal attention."

That task is not as hard as some might think, she added. "They could go anywhere in the world and they came to Sedan, so we're feeling mighty lucky."

Buses, plus

There was more happening than just the buses and the yellow brick road, though. Kansas was by that time becoming known as a destination for people who wanted to hunt trophy whitetail deer, and the limestone hills and big ranch country around Sedan still produces some dandies.

Eclectic as the state's game laws are, and as difficult to maintain steady relationships with hunters, the area nonetheless drew ample attention. Frank and Sandi Adcock, who ranch near Sedan, realized they were sitting on a golden brick road outside the town, and 10 years ago they began to sell deer hunts. Today they host 20 or more hunters per year.

The hunters have obviously not been disappointed. Most are repeat customers when they can draw a license, and Adcock has a small photo album filled with trophy-class whitetails taken on their own ranch and a larger ranch they have leased for many years.

"We've been very fortunate," Sandi said. "We've never had any people that have caused any trouble. They come a long way and spend a lot of money to hunt."

Frank added, "When they leave, they all leave happy. They don't all kill a big deer, but they all see good deer."

He calls their hunting business a "significant" income boost.

"The hunting has let us do a few things we probably wouldn't have been able to do without it," Frank said. "It's an enjoyable business and you don't have to break your back or cheat anyone to do it."

Building momentum

There was more happening, though. Interest drew more interest. People brought money, and as the town drew new breath, more people noticed and fed it still more. Benefactors appeared-people willing to spend money on principle because they believed in the cause, or they loved the history, or because they might someday make money from large up-front investment.

Don Armstrong, a long-time area resident bought the old home-place of a local family west of the town and began restoring three old barns, pouring perhaps a quarter-million dollars into the property. The place is known today as Three Barns and hosts trail rides, parties, square dances, family reunions and antique shows, to name a few things.

Facility manager Donna Casement, who is also the school librarian, said the 5-year plan is to get the 1,000-acre property to pay its own way. The elderly Armstrong dreams of deeding the property to the community at some point, she added.

Prices to use the facility seem cheap at $15 for trail rides and $150 per day to rent the buildings for an event, but Casement said she hopes that will increase soon, along with popularity of Three Barns as a destination.

Beds, please

One problem the town of Sedan has is the lack of overnight capacity. A small, old motel and two or three bed and breakfast houses have so far relegated much of Sedan's tourism to quick stops.

That is not a bad thing, Jones said, since one tour bus carrying 40 people will leave $400 in the town in just 30 minutes. But longer stays usually mean more money spent.

The Red Buffalo Ranch adds overnight capacity in small scale with a bed and breakfast it calls the River Cabin.

In fact, the Red Buffalo Ranch, purchased by television producer Bill Kurtis in 1996 is another example of a benefactor-investor in action.

Kurtis's Sedan ranch draws bird watchers, wildflower admirers, horseback riders and hikers.

The ranch hosts the national Chuck Wagon Races, an odd little event which brings 4,000 people to town each June. Kurtis plans to open another bed and breakfast called The Stone House this fall, and has bought 14 buildings in Sedan's downtown district.

The old Sedan Hotel is being restored through grants and donations, and the townspeople dream that by 2005 it will add to their ability to draw tourist dollars.

Tourist terror

It's certain not everyone in Sedan is on the bandwagon for tourism.

"Tourism is a scary word to a lot of people in the country," Jones said.

Yet those people are enjoying the revival of the town along with those who are actively involved. Surely they recognize the advantages, even if they don't take part in the road show.

"A lot of people don't realize they have anything to sell," said Ben Allen, Chautauqua County agent for Kansas State University extension. "They say, 'Who'd want to come down here and sit on the porch?'"

"I tell them, 'I can find you a lot of 'em.'"

Mary Pat Bilyk said the attitude of Sedan in those early days helped draw her and her husband here. They left the hassles of ranching in Arizona behind and came to the Oklahoma and the Kansas Flint Hills looking for ranch country on the recommendation of friends.

Although they began looking in Oklahoma, the indomitable spirit of Sedan drew them northward.

"It was so depressing to go around Oklahoma and see all the towns and everything boarded up but the schools," she said. "Even 15 years ago, Sedan was different. They'd already started the yellow brick road and there was a group of people dedicated who didn't want to see the town die. And you could sense that."

Coming home

"I would never have thought I'd come back here, the way it looked," said Joyce Sartin, owner of the Sugar Mining Company. She once lived in Sedan, but fled the economic doldrums to build and later sell a large business in southern California, then another in Branson, Mo.

Sartin said her company in Sedan is a prototype, selling candies and popcorn as she once did in California. There she operated at the wholesale level, exporting thousands of pounds of confections each year.

"There we manufactured by the ton. Here we manufacture by the bucket," Sartin said.

Her shop is a favorite stop for tourists and includes a puppet show of the "sugar miners" in the back, along with sales of confections and company logo T-shirts in the front.

Her intent is to downsize the store and franchise or license it, perhaps to other small towns or even to those who operate in malls and other, more typical business locations. Across

the street she has begun to manufacture wicker furniture, although it is made of a fiberglass material instead of cane. This kind of business, too, would bring more money to Sedan.

Helping each other

"I did more business when there were five clothing stores in town than when I was the only one," Nita Jones said.

"When people come in here we blow other people's horns," said Joyce Sartin. Sharing business makes the most sense, even among similar businesses, she said. Her friend Nita Jones listens as she talks and nods in agreement.

Gene Kelley, a local rancher who heads the newest bank in town, said this notion of sharing is unquestionably true.

"You have to keep people here, keep them in business and keep them at the bank," he said.

This principle he said is, in fact, considered by some to be the primary commandment of rural economic development. It could be stated - "Protect what you have first, then seek more."

Sedan has done that well, and seems to be hitting its stride as it races to beat the tide of economic despondency so common in rural America now.